Friday, October 29, 2010

Cotton 100% (Playstation)

Cotton 100%, also known as Märchen Adventure Cotton 100%, was originally released for the Super Famicom in 1994. For all purposes, it is a special take on the first Cotton game, meaning you have the same basic stage structure but with a lighter, more colorful aspect to the whole design. I honestly have no idea of the reasoning behind porting the game to the Playstation as late as 2003. Why not have the real sequel that came out for the Sega Saturn? Anyway, with the exception of some insignificant details Cotton 100% is exactly the same game from the 16-bit era, so there's really no reason for casual players to own both titles.

Coming out only under the Superlite 1500 budget label (no need to search for a black label edition - this is the black label), Cotton 100% for the Playstation preserves everything from the Super Famicom original, down to the available options, Japanese text and occasional Engrish, such as "twincle star" and "barrior". You don't even get anything more advanced such as high score saves or a single mention to a 2003 copyright on the title screen. In fact, if you're not listening to the music it will be hard to tell which version you're playing. If you've got sound it gets easier, because then you'll notice the only meaningful addition made by the developer: a slightly remixed soundtrack with a rockier edge.

Ssshh! Don't tell anyone this is just like the Super Famicom Cotton 100%!

Since the gameplay is unchanged, I won't write about it again (please check my entry on the SNES title). What the Playstation port actively does in order to improve it is eliminate the little original slowdown, that's all. After I gave it a go I got back to the SNES in order to check for other possible differences, so here's what I found out:

a minor bug on the PS1: if you set your fairy options in a straight vertical formation - the one where they shoot behind you in a fixed position - and keep yourself at the leftmost of the screen, the fairies won't be seen and won't shoot anything, so you lose some precious firepower aid if you stay put. Weird, huh? This doesn't happen at all in the SNES game.

there are only two sizes of crystals in the PS1 version. On the SNES you get three sizes of crystals. The fat, chubbier crystal is completely absent from the PS1. I didn't get it even once during all my credits.

Datam Polystar was the publisher of the original Super Famicom game. While its copyright was duly erased from the PS1's title screen, it still appears in the ending credits. Budget title laziness? Then again, why bother?

One important thing to have in mind if you want to go for the 1CC in this game – definitely one of the easiest 1CCs ever – is that the stock for magic spells isn’t lost when you die. Therefore, more important than not dying is to preserve a good batch of magic spells for the fight against the last boss. As a rule of thumb, the fire magic is extremely powerful and should take care of bosses pretty quickly.

Bring me my willows! (courtesy of YouTube user KollisionBR)

This time I was able to repeat the accomplishment of avoiding all tea cups in the tea time bonus sections, which gave me a huge tea cup worth 375.000 points at the end of stage 6. I’m quite happy because I beat my previous high score from the SNES with the following outcome (NORMAL):